Wednesday, June 11, 2008

France vs Romania JokeFest

Football journalists were busy whipping out their poison pens after France and Romania threatened to bring the beautiful game into disrepute, an accusation more often levied at "enemies of football" such as Jose Mourinho and er..Marco Materazzi. Even England, like an unfortunate kid picked on for no apparent reasons, was not spared the collateral damage. From perennial underachievers to plucky minnows? Ha!

From Guardian:To be fair, Romania have only ever won one game in the Euros and that was against plucky minnows England.

From International Herald Tribune:On a mild and sunny evening, the best that could be said of the tired spectacle was that the grass was a particularly restful shade of green and, to the naked eye, appeared to be growing well.

Unfortunately, there was nothing of wit from Soccernet this time. When it comes to wit, no other publication does it better than Guardian. Here are some Guardian gems to savour(drawn from other occasions and in no particular order):

[England-Croatia]After all the debate over the shape England ought to adopt, Croatia decreed that it would be a severely dented one.

[France-Italy WC 2006]Zidane looked relaxed, sharing a joke with Fabien Barthez who, coincidentally, has often been described as a joke.

[France-Romania Euro 2008]For the first time in a year or so, Malouda broke dangerously down the left. He jinked into the box but his shot sailed somewhere over the Alps.

[France-Brazil WC 2006]Now that the over-hyped Ronaldinho has been absolutely rubbish in the entire World Cup as well as the Champions League final, thus shrinking continuously in the big stage, could he be dubbed the New Old Thierry Henry?

[Man U-?]Wayne Rooney struggled to contain his fiery temper and screamed 'You Kant' at a linesman when called for offside, and then 'Foucault' at the referee. Rare for a player to react to an unwelcome decision by critiquing the philosophical underpinnings of the rules.